Organizers of the annual Mustache Ride presented a check to the Routt County Humane Society for $8,000, about $2,000 more than was donated last year.

“It was our biggest turnout yet,” said Nate Bird, who organizes the event with Rob Peterson and Casey Barnett. “We keep getting more organized every year. This year, with help from all the ladies from the Humane Society, we ensured everyone made a donation.”

The event, in its seventh year, saw more than 300 mustache-clad riders descend on Steamboat Springs for fun, shenanigans, drinks and to support a good cause. The idea stemmed from an idea Bird and Peterson had years ago to get friends together to enjoy a party and bar crawl.

Four years ago, it morphed into a fundraiser for the Humane Society.

“It was a lot of mustaches last year,” Bird said.

In the past two years, the event has taken off with the help of Barnett, who set up a website where people could purchase drink packages before the ride began.

Last year, the group raised $6,000 for the Humane Society. This year had its biggest turnout yet.

“The Mustache Ride is one of the largest fundraisers that hasn’t taken us an entire year to put together,” said Lisa Archer Leach, who is a member of the Humane Society’s board. “For anybody participating, they get a party out of it and raise a lot of money. It’s done with warm hearts and open wallets.”

The money from the fundraiser goes to help with medical expenses, feeding, spaying and neutering and getting at-risk animals training and analysis, among other things.

“We’re an all-volunteer board, and we’re all grateful for the funds that the community was able to pull together,” Archer Leach said.

For Bird, whose dog, Grommet, came from the Humane Society, the Mustache Ride always will be part of the calendar.

It’s scheduled for the first Saturday in October next year and planning to make it the biggest — and most charitable for the Humane Society — already is in the process.

“I think we can hit $10,000,” he said. “I think that’s within reach. It’s a grass-roots thing that was just a party seven years ago and has turned into this.”